Emmer & Rye

The best restaurants reflect and amplify the voice and vision of a chef. Kevin Fink brims with a passion for food and creativity, and that energy is contagious. Eavesdrop as the chef delivers a dish to a table and you will hear him speak about ingredients and techniques with an enthusiasm that infects his entire team. The waitstaff may be waxing eloquently about the beauty of simple sliced melon dusted with lemon verbena and sugar or explaining that the heritage grain white Sonoran wheat was used to make the Indian-inspired roti on which sits juicy and crispy rib carnitas.

But you don’t need to understand food science or be able to chart ingredient provenance to appreciate the jalapeno emulsion that gives red shrimp and potato its kick, zucchini’s capacity to transform into a spiced cake, or the luxuriant stretch of split-personality pasta that encases eggplant Parmesan at one end and summer squash and ricotta at the other. You enjoy the food and the party; let them worry about what goes on behind the scenes. And just know, when a restaurant airs old episodes of “The Splendid Table” in its bathrooms, you’re in the company of first-class food nerds.